We were producing newspapers, not cars. But sometimes I thought we should have had earplugs and other protective gear as well.
Before the computer era brought in a more hushed, murmuring atmosphere, working in a newsroom used to be quite the noisy, clamorous affair. Phones rang loudly, typewriters dinged at the end of every line, editors barked for copyboys to hand-deliver stories from one desk to another, and the old wire machines chattered and clanged, the number of bells indicating how big a news story was coming down the pike.
It was like a factory, but of words.
The other similarity, other than the din we both created in doing our jobs, was the sense of pride you get from seeing something you made roll off either the assembly line or the printing press.
Surely other workers feel the same thing. Chefs and computer programmers no doubt feel pride at seeing their cakes or codes in their final form.
But I can't help but think when your product is something so commonplace and serviceable that there's a certain thrill in seeing it out there, on a daily basis, on the road or in someone's hand.
I've met a few autoworkers over the years - as a national correspondent for The Sun, I went up to Flint, Mich., to cover a UAW strike against GM about 10 years ago - and even on the picket lines, workers talked proudly of the models they had a hand in. Learning I was from Baltimore, one autoworker told me his recently purchased Chevy Astro van came from the assembly plant on Broening Highway.
"We don't make lemons," he told me, "so we believe in buying our own."
That plant closed in 2005 after 70 years, and more factories are due to be shuttered as GM tries to right itself. I hope it does. At a time when much of the current crisis seems totally of another reality - all this money and credit and debt and changing hands and somehow pushing the entire economy to the brink - we need industries that employ people who make tangible products rather than vaporous deals.
The let-'em-fail cries grow ever louder as the government spends more and more money bailing out banks and car companies. (You get the same sort of good-riddance attitude from those who have a beef with the media and enjoy seeing its current struggles, even though no one is seeking a government bailout for the press.)
Other than the fact that there's something rather mean-spirited about cheering anyone's misfortune, maybe there's another reason not to be so nonchalant about once-great companies like GM going under.
It's that original mean girl, who goes by the name of Karma.
